Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Pillow Form and Sweater Pillow

I sometimes browse through online stores and see pillows that I like and I am always amazed at the prices that the stores charge. I am shocked at pillows that cost $100 and above. Anything over $30 is a lot of money because pillows are the easiest things to make! Also, things are a lot cheaper in Asia, I guess because of the conversion of the currency. Once, I went to West Elm and saw a pillow I liked and paid $30 for it. Ka-ching! That was the sound of the cashier's till. Just kidding. I went home, looked at the receipt and saw that I was only paying for the cover of the pillow. The insert, or the actual pillow itself was $15! That made the whole thing $45. Not only that, I had purchased four of them! Note to self: Must check receipt every time before leaving the car park. As West Elm is too far away, in Virginia, I decided to keep them, otherwise, I would have returned them.

Last weekend, I went to a thrift store and saw a huge pile of polyester filling. I decided to take only one because I wanted to experiment with making my own pillow form and creating a sweater pillow. The internet is full of helpful information on how to make them.

This bag was HUGE. I put an A4 paper next to it to show its comparative size. It cost me $1.50. I had lots of scrap fabric at home so I used an off-white cotton. I followed this very helpful tutorial by Today's Fabulous Finds. I only need half a bag to fill the pillow form so there is enough for another pillow. Bonus! I might go back this weekend to pick up more polyfibre fill!

I also bought a couple of sweaters from the thrift store and one of them was this. $3.50. Sorry about the poor lighting, I took this photo a little before midnight.

I washed it (even though the store said it was washed but you never know) and started working. I followed a tutorial by the Brassy Apple.

I will just let the pictures tell their own story.

I am saving the sleeves for a scarf for Matt.

I forgot to take photos of my pillow form - oops! The only picture I have of it is in the background, see how it is pinned, waiting for me to hand stitch the closing shut?

And here is my finished sweater pillow. I do like the texture of it, it was a good experiment. It seems a bit plain to me, I might add some embellishments later - not sure whose room it will go into yet. The boys might reject it if I put a pink flower on it.

About Me

I enjoy all forms of crafts, from quilting to furniture making. It is exciting to take something apart to see how it was constructed. Most of the time I am not very successful in putting them back together but on the times I do, the learning is so fun! I am a mother of two children, married to an Australian. We are currently transplanted in the USA, having lived in Singapore, Australia, Bahrain and Tunisia. I am a Malaysian. This blog is a little record of fashion, thrifting, crafting, furniture - a bit of everything.